TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY **'Exhilarating.' Joyce Carol Oates, Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year'Sharp-eyed and revealing.' The New Yorker'Brilliant .
August, 1755. Newcastle, on the north bank of the Tyne. In the fields, men and women are getting the harvest in. Sunlight, or rain. Scudding clouds and backbreaking labour. Three hundred feet underground, young Charles Hutton is at the coalface. Cramped, dust-choked, wielding a five-pound pick by candlelight. ...